The prophet's complaint of evil

First of all, the prophet complains that the evil which exists
among the people is insupportable. This is the natural effect of
the working of the Spirit of God in a heart jealous for His glory
and detesting evil. The heart of the prophet, formed in the school
of the law, speaks perhaps of the evil in the spirit of the
law. The Spirit of God does not bring him out of this position,
which was properly that of a prophet before God, and he judges the
evil in a holy manner, according to a heart that was faithful to
the blessings of Jehovah.

Jehovah's revelation of His chastisement

Thereupon Jehovah reveals to him the terrible judgment by which
He will chastise the people who thus gave themselves up to
evil. He would raise up against them the Chaldeans, those types of
pride and energy, who, successful in all their enterprises, sought
glory only in the opinion they had of themselves. Their head,
forsaking the true God who had given them their strength, would
worship a god of his own.*

{* Sad effect of pride, which, unknown to itself, is the parent
of weakness! Man cannot sustain himself; and the pride which
rejects the true God must and does make one for itself, or adopts
what its fathers have made, for pride cannot stand in the presence
of the supreme God. Man makes a god: this, too, is pride. But he
cannot do without one; and after all, the natural heart is the
slave of that which it cannot do without.}

The wicked established in power by Jehovah for correction

But all this awakens in the prophet a different sentiment from
that which he before experienced. Here was his God denied by the
instrument of vengeance, and the beloved people trodden down by
one more wicked than themselves. But faith knows that its God, the
true God, is the one and only Lord,* and (already a profound
consolation assuring the heart of salvation) that it is Jehovah
who has established the wicked in power for the correction of His
people. But shall they continue to fill their net with men, as
though they were but fish?

{* To Habakkuk of course Jehovah; to us the Father is revealed
in the Son, and so one Lord, Jesus Christ.}